At the risk of strecthing your patience with product announcements... bear with me, there is a tie-in to Remote Central.

My employer began US distribution of a new distributed digital audio system this week. It's available through ADI, and more info is available at http://www.graphitefive.com

I had the pleasure of coodinating usability testing, and the overwhelming response was "cool". One thing I heard often, particularly among the wives, was how much easier it is to use than those "complicated remotes and front panel interfaces with all their buttons". (Notice the tie-in to Remote Central... the touchscreen is a very, very fancy remote. And like remotes, the IR codes need to be in the database or added by you, so this may be a good forum to trade tips and tricks) (Daniel, you can contact me to discuss advertising terms)

This is the last "commercial" you'll see from me on this forum, but I will watch to see what kind of feedback or questions you might have.

By the way, if you'd like to stop by your local ADI office for a demo and to meet one of our folks, the schedule for April/May seminars and expos is posted on the website under support, with more to follow.

I hope you'll find we've addressed your needs well.

Regards,

Norton

Best of luck to you!

Looks interesting. Kind of like an A Bus system on steroids (except over actual IP). Could easily be retrofited on many of my existing simple volume control systems where one has pulled 16/4 AND a Cat 5 to each volume control. Simply yank the volume, cut out the single gang box (that may not always be easy), use the 16/4 for power supply and the Cat 5 for the IP to the Touch Screen. Voila!

Am I reading this right?

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FPCrazy: Yes, though I'm not sure what you mean by cutting out the single gang box. If I understand your installation scenario, the touchscreen amp will install onto the existing single gang box. A neat feature the engineers put in even allows you to reverse the screen graphics so if you have to rotate the unit to fit it near a door or something like that, the GUI won't be "upside down". The touchscreen will install onto a single, double or triple gang box.

Norton

I have seen this touchscreen from another company called Colorado Vnet! Check this link out ; [Link: coloradovnet.com] . Who actually makes this system??

Looks like the same company - both in Loveland. Maybe thats an old site?

Hey Norton, any native devices with true two way meta data communications with the screens?

Good sleuthing - Graphite Five is owned by Colorado vNet. The Colorado vNet site will get updated soon - for now the Graphite Five site is the current one.

At this time communication is one-way. The touchscreen generates control commands which are sent over IP for conversion to IR by the encoder. The system will control any device which responds to IR. It will also re-transmit IR signals from a universal or OEM remote used in the listening zone.

It also has a configuration for "listen only" or "non-controlled" devices. Users who connect media servers (or iPods, etc.) will need to either walk to the device to set up the music stream, or use an alternative control mechanism for playlist browsing, etc., such as a wifi handheld or network attached PC. This will be perceived as a disadvantage by some customers (and installers), but when they check out the price difference compared with systems that provide two-way they may prefer the Graphite Five system. It may come down to a decision between 2-way metadata versus 2-3 additional listening zones.

We were actually looking at the Colorado vNet stuff right after cedia - had a rep come out and introduce us to the stuff. Is the Producer software the same that CvNet is using?

|Is the Producer software

It's much simpler - it configures for the source devices you'll be using so it'll know which GUI screens to present and which IR codes to issue. In case the database doesn't include the IR codes, it has a few different ways you can load or learn them.

Yah we signed up with them too.. Haven't heard from them since Cedia.. Now they're under a different company name and going through distribution instead of direct, kinda suspicous... Guess we'll move on..